US:THE UNITED States justice department told military interrogators of suspected terrorists that they could ignore federal and international laws forbidding torture and cruel treatment, according to a newly declassified 2003 memo.
The advice, which was withdrawn after nine months, came from John Yoo, who was the second-ranking official at the department's office of legal counsel.
Mr Yoo told the Pentagon that federal laws against such crimes as assault or maiming did not necessarily apply to military interrogators abroad because President George Bush had the authority to decide how the "war on terror" should be prosecuted.
"If a government defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate a criminal prohibition, he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al-Qaeda terrorist network," Mr Yoo wrote.
"In that case, we believe that he could argue that the executive branch's constitutional authority to protect the nation from attack justified his actions."
Mr Yoo said that interrogators who harmed a prisoner would be protected by a "national and international version of the right to self-defence" and suggested that for an interrogation method to be illegal, it must "shock the conscience" by, for example, being motivated by malice or sadism. "Whether conduct is conscience-shocking turns in part on whether it is without any justification," he wrote.
The document, released as a result of a freedom of information action taken by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), is similar to a notorious 2002 memo, also written by Mr Yoo, which narrowly defined torture.
"The victim must experience intense pain or suffering of the kind that is equivalent to the pain that would be associated with serious physical injury so severe that death, organ failure or permanent damage resulting in a loss of significant body functions will likely result," Mr Yoo wrote in 2002.
ACLU attorney Amrit Singh said the newly released memo reinforced the case for senior officials being called to account for the conduct of the campaign against terrorism. "Senior officials at the justice department gave the Pentagon the green light to torture prisoners," Mr Singh added.
"It is outrageous that none of these high-level officials have been brought to task yet for their role in authorising prisoner abuse."
The Bush administration has faced sustained criticism from human rights campaigners for allowing interrogators to use harsh techniques including extreme temperatures, head-slapping and waterboarding, a form of controlled drowning. The administration's critics argue that, although Mr Yoo's memos were withdrawn within months of being issued, they helped to establish a mindset among interrogators and other US military personnel that led to excesses such as those seen in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.
In 2005, Congress passed an act requiring the defence department to restrict interrogation methods to those set out in the Army Field Manual, which bans coercive interrogations.